book tours

I’ve done hundreds of invited talks and readings on three different continents and I love being out there with my writing—it’s a dream come true. But even though I’m an extrovert, I found doing readings more challenging than I expected when I started out touring twenty-five books ago.

I had the benefit of some acting experience in college, so I was very comfortable with my spouse coming along to give me director’s notes on my first book tour. I learned a lot from every single reading: what worked, what didn’t, and how I needed to up my game. I began to look forward to every reading with excitement. Do I get nervous even now? Absolutely, but in a good way.

I’ve taught workshops about how to do author readings because I believe that there are skills you can learn if you’re dedicated enough. And whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, here are four things authors should know and consider before they meet their public in a bookstore or any other venue.

1. The word “reading” sounds a little flat because it actually involves a whole lot more than the text at hand. It’s a performance. You’re performing your own work, acting it out, giving it texture and color that might not even be there on the page, but that audiences crave. I’ve seen people actually fall asleep at some readings because the authors read as if they were sitting at their desk, in a monotone, with no shading, no nuance, no drama.

2. You need to prepare for this performance as if you’re going on stage, which in effect you are. You don’t have to memorize your text, but you need to have practiced reading it enough times so that you’re familiar with it and can look up at the audience as often as possible. Making eye contact is important in a reading, and this is a chance to connect with your audience in a very deep way. It’s not just your words that count, it’s the power you imbue them with.

3. Picking the right thing to read can be tricky. Whether you’re reading for ten minutes or half an hour, what you present needs to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. You want to satisfy your audience’s need for structure in the entertainment. Don’t choose anything you feel iffy about, or that you don’t have emotional control over. Crying or even choking up in a reading can be very embarrassing for people who are listening.

4. Trying to win the audience’s favor right off by apologizing isn’t a good idea. Telling them that this is your first time, or that you’re not entirely sure this story or novel chapter really works undercuts your authority as a performer. Likewise, announcing that you decided on what to read “on the way over here” is disrespectful to the audience: they deserve an author who’s prepared. And be careful about making jokes to warm up your listeners—they might fall flat.

It doesn’t matter how big your audience is. Every audience deserves the best you’ve got, and you can learn how to give that to them, no matter how shy you might be, or how anxious, or how reluctant. Readings are a unique way to reach your audience–and they can make you a better writer, too.

Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-six books in genres from memoir to mystery and teaches creative writing online at writewithoutborders.com.

A recent Suzie Speaks blog discussed being an “extroverted introvert” and how that plays out in her life. The question of those polarities is something I think about all the time.

Picking an identity

I’d describe myself as the opposite of Suzie: an introverted extrovert. Though most people I know would say I’m extroverted because I do so much public speaking as an author (26 books and counting). I’ve done readings in more than one language and spoken about my work hundreds of times on three different continents, from Oxford University to The Library of Congress in D.C. to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Interacting with an audience is exciting and fun for me, and so is teaching in a classroom, which I’ve done on and off for many years. That’s like writing, directing, and acting in a play.

Looking for an oasis

But I also crave my privacy and need down time after “performing.” After a few hours of teaching, all I want is quiet, a glass of wine, and some calming music or streaming a no-brains movie. It’s even more crucial for me to chill out alone when I’m on a book tour. It’s way too easy for me to feel drained after spending so much time interacting with people because I have to be 100% present. A book tour or any kind of invited speaking gig involves constant talking with whoever picks you up at the train station or airport, with cab drivers, with your dinner companion, with fans. Especially with fans since it’s important for me to do Q&A at my appearances. Conferences where I do workshops are the same: I love what I do but I need to wind down afterwards ASAP.

Being an artist

The zigzag between introversion and extroversion has a deeper layer for me. Years ago I read psychologist Otto Rank’s Art and Artist and he wisely noted that artists of all kinds need experience and stimulation to create, so they have to go out into the world. But as Wordsworth wrote, the world can be “too much with us,” and so in Rank’s view, creation requires retreating from the world for us to have the necessary time and energy for contemplation and reflection. Rank saw the artist as in a perpetual battle act between public life and private life, and it sometimes does seem that way. I’ll be happy to go to concert, but wish I were home–or I’ll be working on a book and want to go somewhere, anywhere out in the world.

Marriage changed me

Years ago, I was the kind of person who people were glad to have at a party. I enjoyed dancing, mingling, meeting new people. As an extrovert, I could chat with anyone. More than that, I loved throwing parties myself, organizing it all, inviting a cool mix of friends and acquaintances and keeping the whole thing going by just being on the entire evening. Then I married an introvert who spoke only when it seemed necessary, and our long years together have definitely made me more introverted. I prefer lunching with only person now, not a group, and would rather have just one couple over for brunch than do a dinner party–or any kind of party.

Living more quietly

I grew up in crowded, noisy New York City where it seemed like I was always surrounded by people and endless commotion. But for several decades now I’ve been living in a suburb where the noise you hear is dogs barking, the chatter of birds waking up in the morning, kids laughing and biking, and the hoot of a distant train at night. It’s something of an idyll for me, which is why I don’t apply to go to writers’ retreats: I have one. Even though there are three main roads nearby, my house is at the center of the subdivision and we can’t hear any of that traffic. It takes a lot to convince me to leave my retreat now, and I sometimes have to brace myself and get focused beforehand. As much as I enjoy being with friends or traveling abroad, home is often my favorite place to be. I guess when it comes down to it, I’m probably more of an ambivert–and yes, that’s a thing. 🙂

So how about you? Are you an introvert, an extrovert, an ambivert? What’s it like navigating your world?

Lev Raphael teaches creative writing online in on-on-one workshops at writewithoutborders.com. His books range across genres from memoir to mystery. You can check them out at levraphael.com.

Writing is lonely and sometimes it seems that the only people who truly understand what that feels like are other writers, but the bond can be deceptive. Just because someone else writes doesn’t mean that they’re truly simpatico. Be careful who you choose to bring into your writing world and make a friend. You might end up regretting that choice.

–Avoid writers who are obsessed with the ups and downs of the publishing world. Knowing what the trends are is important, but it shouldn’t keep you from writing what you want to write, or distract you from your own work.

–If you notice that a writer consistently belittles their own success, stay away. There’s nothing wrong with healthy enjoyment of doing well. But some writers are never happy, and that undertow of negativity might eventually affect you.

–Be wary of writers who dismiss or even ignore how you feel about career setbacks or disappointments. If they can’t empathize with you when you’re down, is that really a person you want to know long-term?

–Not everyone feels the need to write every day, and writer friends who obsess about their daily progress via word counts or page counts can become annoying, even if you’re not feeling stuck.

–Publishing is uncertain, but avoid writers who are paranoid about things that will never happen to them, like being dropped by their publishers when they’re successful. You’ve got your own real worries to deal with.

–Sometimes other writers will let their contempt show about the genre you write in, if it’s not one that they truly admire. Don’t hang around anyone who actually looks down at your work while pretending to be a buddy.

–If you’ve got a writer friend who keeps sending you their great reviews, interviews, etc., ask yourself why? Does he or she feel the need to impress you? What for? Isn’t it enough to just share the news itself?

–Beware of writers who tell you what you need or what your work is missing. One friend reported to me that another author told her she didn’t have “enough angst” to be a writer. Blanket assessments like that are pointless, dumb, and insulting.

–We’re all busy (if things are going well), but writers who keep complaining that they’re over-committed yet won’t stop doing events like readings, signings, or conference panels that they claim frustrate them obviously have a deep need to complain.

In the end, being connected to other writers is important, but it’s just as important to have friends who aren’t writers. That’ll help you remember that the world is a place where not everyone is working with words 24/7. It’ll keep you sane. Well, saner….

I’m lucky to have had three sponsored book tours in Germany, a country I surprisingly fell in love with, given that my parents were Holocaust survivors.

I was touring for several books including a memoir, My Germany, and I always had a terrific time, especially with my hosts in one city after another. I admire the serious book culture that exists in Germany and how authors are respected as cultural figures. I love the comfortable trains and the train stations with good food, great bookstores, and cheerful-looking flower shops.

But I found certain things about traveling in Germany quirky, and that’s actually a good thing, because a book tour can be exhausting with the constant change of scene and because you’re working so hard. Without a sense of humor, you can really get worn down. Noting cultural differences is a fun distraction–and educational, too.

Those same great trains and train stations have been a consistent source of amusement for me. No matter where I am or what train I’m on, even though an announcement might be delivered in German and English, the speaker always leaves out important content in English. The German announcement will apologize for a train being late in German but that won’t be repeated in English, and forget hearing anything about connections or even whether there’s a bistro or restaurant on the train. Without knowing German, you can miss a lot, and let’s face it, plenty of foreigners travel on Die Bahn.

Hotels of all sorts there are a puzzle. Why are so many German beds so low to the ground? This isn’t a country prone to earthquakes — they really don’t have to fear falling out bed, do they? And what’s with German pillows? They’re mostly as soft as rags, which is why the hotel staff can arrange them in pretty shapes on the bed (triangles seem to be popular). Usually I need a handful of them to make for a somewhat restful sleep, or the hope of one.

The beds are low but the showers are high. You almost always have to step up into the shower or bath tub which admittedly isn’t a big deal. But the dismount can be tricky when you’re all wet. And why are German toilets high, too? Are you supposed to be having elevated, philosophical thoughts on the throne because you’re in the land of Goethe?

Maybe so. Let’s face it, Germany is Goethe-crazy. On one tour I ate at a Heidelberg restaurant Goethe mentioned in one of his journals, and the restaurant noted in its publicity material and in a mural on its wall that he almost slept at the inn there way back when. Almost.

But even Germans make fun of their Goethe worship. In the university town of Tübingen, there’s a plaque indicating that Goethe puked there. What’s even funnier is that plenty of American tourists don’t realize it’s a joke.

I’ll be honest: touring with a book isn’t as glamorous as many people think. It can be exhausting as you travel from one city to another, never knowing if you’ll be delayed or catch some bug on the plane. And bizarre things can go wrong. Once when I was reading in Arizona, the cab driver was new and took me half an hour in the wrong direction before he noticed his mistake. After the reading, the next driver told me the neighborhood of my hotel was on the rise: “They’re starting to get rid of the junkies and hookers.”

It deteriorated from there. The desk clerk couldn’t find my reservation. When I finally got to my room, there was a wailing baby next door. I thought I’d take a relaxing bath, but as soon as I got in, there was frantic pounding at my door. I thought there must be a fire and the alarm wasn’t working. I panicked, rushed out in a towel, and a hotel staffer was there at the door with the news that my phone needed repair.

However, those moments are the exception, and become funny over time. The key thing is that I love doing readings. I started out with some theater background and a lot of experience in the classroom, and the chance to perform my work is always exciting. I practice my readings, time them, and enjoy being able to interact with my audience in person.

Just as good is meeting wonderful hosts in city after city, here or abroad. One of the most amazing has been Marilyn Hassid, who just retired from the Cultural Arts department at the Houston Jewish Community Center. She ran one of the best and biggest Jewish Book Fairs in the country. These take place in November for Jewish Book Month and are sponsored by the Jewish Book Council which organizes everything for you. Your audiences are always book lovers and book buyers.

Marilyn discovered my first book of short stories and was a fierce champion of that book and others that I published, inviting me to Houston at least six times. The first time, my crime fiction idol Walter Mosley was also on the schedule, and when I gushed about him over the phone, she generously asked if I’d like to stay an extra day to join a group having dinner with him. I also attended his reading, which was funny and stirring, and I was able to have drinks with him afterwards and talk about strategies for building a mystery series, which I hoped to do.

Marilyn was such an awesome fan that she helped me score other gigs at many different book fairs across the country, and was always warm, wise, encouraging. Marilyn was invaluable in helping me expand my audience at a crucial time: when I was starting out to publish books after years of magazine publications.

I loved trading book recommendations with her when we met in Houston or anywhere else. We sometimes had a little time for coffee or even a meal together and she regaled me with hilarious stories of book tour authors who were anything from overly demanding to crazed. Meeting her and becoming her friend has been one of the highlights of my writing life, and an example of how your career can be serendipitously shaped by a terrific person reading your book at the right time.

I love them all, or I wouldn’t have written them, but my 19th book My Germany has a special place in my writer’s heart. It’s more deeply personal than my other books, and it’s also the one I struggled with most.

I’m the son of Holocaust survivors, and the book is a combination of history, family history, travelogue, mystery, and a coming out story. The thread that connects it all is my exploration of the role that Germany–real and imagined–played in my family while I was growing up and in my own life as an adult and an author.

It wasn’t an easy set of stories to tell. It took me more than five years to figure out the book’s structure and to let go of trying to force it into a specific mold. I finally realized that I could blend genres, and that set me free to follow the advice the poet Sir Phillip Sydney’s muse gave to him: “Look in your heart, and write.”

My Germany is also the book that garnered me the most speaking gigs of any book in my career: somewhere between fifty and sixty. That included two book tours in Germany where I spoke in over a dozen different cities, and sometimes even read from it in German, which I had started studying in night classes.

Unexpectedly, I felt comfortable the moment I got to Germany and I remembered something I’d somehow completely forgotten: I grew up in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where thousands of neighbors were German refugees from the Nazis. I’d been hearing German in the streets, in stores, in our building’s lobby and elevator since childhood. So suddenly plunging into a German-speaking environment wasn’t strange; it was comforting, it made me feel at home.

That was one of the many surprises connected to writing My Germany, and it made clear to me the power that memoir has to connect you to your own past in new, revelatory ways. I was changing, which is why I had to write that memoir, and writing it changed me even more. A colleague once said that writing is a process of discovery; well, that book opened up new worlds for me, and having just taught an online memoir writing workshop this past month, I’ve seen memoir do that for my students, too. It’s thrilling.

Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in many genres, including the guide for writers, Writer’s Block is Bunk. You can take writing workshops with him online at writewithoutborders.com.“Studying creative writing with Lev Raphael was like seeing Blade Runner for the first time: simply incredible.”—Kyle Roberts, MSU Class of 2016

It’s really hard to say “no” to a gig when you’re a writer, even when you’re not a newbie. There’s nothing more precious than your time at home writing, but there’s always the chance that saying “yes” might make you a valuable personal or professional connection. And then there’s the simple reality that doing anything out there in the world can ease the isolation that every writer feels. It’s a strange profession: the world is what we write about in one way or another, but we need to retreat from it to reflect and create.

I’ve done hundreds of talks and readings now on three different continents and I’ve had to learn the hard way how to figure out when I should say “yes” to a speaking invitation. Here are my personal guidelines.

1—Are they paying enough for my time, whether it’s an evening reading and Q&A, or something more involved like a college visit with multiple events? Any time I spend away from writing is precious, even though I’m an extrovert and love sharing my work with new audiences.

2—Is this an audience I haven’t reached before? Can I do something new and different? Will I read from a different book or do a different kind of talk? Or can I put a new spin on something I’ve done before?

3—How much prep time will I need? I practice all my readings several times, and when I do a talk, I don’t read it, but work from talking points which I prepare very carefully. All that advance work is connected to #1 above.

4—Will it be fun or maybe even exciting? Is the group or the venue or the city enticing in some way? I like to go places I’ve never been to before, or if I have, return to cities I enjoy, like when I was an instant “yes” to keynoting an Edith Wharton conference in Florence.

5—Am I confident that whoever is inviting me will do adequate publicity? There’s never a guarantee about turnout, but it helps to know how much time and effort the host will put into publicizing the event.

6—Is there any chance that after I say yes I’ll regret it? That takes a lot of contemplation and weighing the factors above. It also involves gauging how far I am in any current project, and how disruptive the time away will be.

None of this is foolproof. I’ve had 75 people show up to an event that wasn’t publicized very much and fewer than a dozen come to one that was furiously advertised with emails, posters, and postcards. And events I was ambivalent about turned out to be wonderful experiences. The key for me when I get there is to give the audience 100% no matter its size. That takes more work if fewer people show up, but when you’re an author, everyone deserves to hear you at your best and best-prepared.

Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-five books in genres from memoir to mystery. He’s escaped academia to teach creative writing online at http://writewithoutborders.com.

As one of the first American authors to publish fiction dealing with the experience of children of Holocaust survivors, I’ve been invited to do hundreds of talks and readings across the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, and Israel.

I’ve appeared at a wide range of kinds of venues: colleges and universities, libraries, book fairs, synagogues, churches, and writers’ conferences. For my memoir/travelogue My Germany I did between fifty and sixty presentations alone. Being invited to be a speaker has been tremendously satisfying because sharing my experience as the son of two Holocaust survivors through my work has been a mission of mine for many years. It’s my personal tikkun olam, the term derived from Jewish mysticism which means healing the world.

Hearing myself introduced is often a humbling experience. Sometimes, though, I have to gently correct the person who’s introduced me–and it’s something I will work into the Q&A so as not to embarrass anyone. Why do I need to do that? Because I’ve been called a “second generation Holocaust survivor.”

That label couldn’t be more wrong. My parents survived the Holocaust. I did not. They lost their homes and their countries, and dozens of members of their family were murdered. My mother was in a slave labor camp at the end of the war–but before that she was in a ghetto and a concentration camp. My father was a slave laborer for the Hungarian army and wound up near the war’s end in Bergen-Belsen. Each one witnessed and survived horrors that are staggering to contemplate.

Many children of Holocaust survivors, known as the Second Generation, cope with a difficult legacy. Growing up with parents who survived horrific events is very complicated because it can feel like living in a minefield. Your parents may or may not want to talk about what they endured, but either way, it’s easy for you to say or do the wrong thing and enrage them, or make them cry. While their own childhoods were normal, their childrens’ aren’t because their parents are coping with mammoth trauma and loss.

Psychologists have studied the Second Generation and found many of us have problems ranging from anxiety, depression, and a predisposition to PTSD, as well as issues with relationships, self-esteem, and identity.

I’m proud to have keynoted several international conferences bringing together children of Holocaust survivors, child survivors of the Holocaust, and their allies. And I’m glad that there’s been an international audience for my work. But if I labeled myself a “Second Generation Holocaust survivor,” I would be blurring important distinctions. I would be elevating any personal trauma I grew up with and making it equal to what my parents suffered. It isn’t. It never will be.

Lev Raphael is the prize-winning author of 25 books in genres from memoir to mystery, including the memoir/travelogue My Germany. You can study creative writing with him online at writewithoutborders.com

An editor at an esteemed publishing house contacted me and asked if I had a book for him. He admired my previous work and wanted me on their list. I was flattered and thrilled. The timing was perfect because I did have a book, so I was soon signing a contract that gave me an advance big enough to pay for my upcoming wedding.

And then things went south. The editing process was fine until the day before I left for a book tour in Germany and the editor told me the book was being moved up a season because the publisher loved it. Ordinarily that would have been great news, since in-house excitement is crucial to launching a book. But he asked me to correct the edited manuscript and get it back to him (via email) in the next two weeks.

I explained that I was leaving for a tightly-scheduled book tour, doing daily events and would be in transit when I wasn’t speaking and reading. Moreover, tours were exhausting and I didn’t feel I’d have the focus required for reviewing the book. I also worked on a PC and didn’t have a laptop, which would mean going to internet cafes.

He insisted. I thought, okay, I have to try. But when I got to Germany I discovered that even if I tried to squeeze in some time at an internet cafe every day, there was no way I could work on German keyboards because they were laid out differently and very confusing. My emails home were garbled and I didn’t want to risk any errors creeping into the book.

I explained all that and he said fine, he would get it taken care of.

To my dismay, when I got the book back in page proofs, there was one passage that was repeated. I deleted the repetition while making other minor corrections. But when I got back home after the tour, the publisher himself called to tell me that it would be too expensive to re-do the book since it had gone too far in the publishing process. He refused to fix the problem.

While I loved the book’s cover, I was mortified that it was being published with a glaring flaw. And then a reviewer blamed me for letting the book appear with a repetition.

I felt burned, but luckily fans enjoyed the book despite the screw-up. That’s what publishing is like, filled with ups and downs, and nothing is predictable. As novelist and memoirist Deborah Levy says, “The writing life is mostly about stamina.”

Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in many genres, including the guide for writers, Writer’s Block is Bunk. You can take creative writing workshops with him online at writewithoutborders.com.“Studying creative writing with Lev Raphael was like seeing Blade Runner for the first time: simply incredible.”
—Kyle Roberts, MSU Class of 2016

There are a lot of things nobody prepares for you when you start a career as an author. Going on my first book tour years ago, my publisher and editor didn’t ask if I knew how to do a reading. Luckily I had some acting experience and my spouse was on sabbatical, so after every reading I got “director’s notes.” What worked, what didn’t work, where did I need to slow down, how did I need to engage my audience better–and much more.

It was invaluable, like taking a one-person seminar, and it made each successive reading more successful.

That tour was when I first discovered how amazing it is to encounter fans. People who haven’t just read your work, but have absorbed it and want to thank you. One person told me she actually had read my book half a dozen times and kept it by her bedside.

I was blown away. Writing is so solitary, and discovering the impact your work might have shifts you out into the world so differently than when you sit there reading a review.

The other day I was at the gym chatting with a trainer. She’s used to seeing me wear blue but I was once again all in black and she asked what was up. I joked about going to Paris and wanting to fit in. A woman nearby asked when I was going and we go into a talk about travel and learning language. She was studying Italian for a big trip to several cities.

I told her about my last trip to Florence and that I’d done fine ordering meals, asking directions, and buying things, but that was about it. She asked how many languages I spoke. French and German were my mains, with side dishes of Swedish and Dutch. Then I had to explain how I’d gotten involved in studying the latter two and we traded more travel notes.

I asked her name and introduced myself and she said, “Oh, I know who you are, I see you here a lot but haven’t wanted to bother a celebrity. I’m a big fan of your mysteries.”

It made my day, made my workout. And reminded me once again how lucky I am to have people reading and enjoying my work.